Germany: Falun Gong Practitioners Stage a Rally in Berlin

On Saturday, May 12th, 2007, over 300 Falun Gong practitioners staged a rally in Breitscheidplatz, in downtown Berlin, to expose the bloody persecution of Falun Gong launched by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) eight years ago. Prior to the EU-China human rights dialogue that is to take place in Germany next week, Falun Gong practitioners raised support for the persecuted Falun Gong practitioners in China and called on the EU to express concern for the CCP’s infringement of Falun Gong practitioners’ human rights.

The music of the “Coming for You Choir” marked the beginning of the rally. Then, representatives from the German International Society for Human Rights, The European Falun Gong Association and human rights group Society for Threatened People made statements at the rally. Mr. Zhang Zhentong from Leipzig also described how his wife Wang Xiaoyan had experienced unlawful labour re-education in China’s labour camps because of practising Falun Gong.

The “Coming for You Choir” consists entirely of Falun Gong practitioners with some background in music. Formally dressed in white and with solemn expressions on their faces, the choir's unaccompanied voices sang a specially composed song, “Coming for You,” in a quadruple harmony. The performance earned them enthusiastic applause from the audience.

Hubert Koerper on behalf of German International Society for Human Rights delivered a speech at the rally, calling on the EU not to have ineffective talks with China as usual, but, instead, to carry on a dialogue with a practical purpose. He commented, “The Europe-China human rights dialogue has always been a closed-door dialogue. I think this kind of situation should not be allowed any more. Judged from the number of the persecuted and brutality of the persecution, China still ranks as the worst for its most serious infringement of human rights and the cruelest torture".

Being informed of the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, passers-by felt shocked. A German lady said, “It’s so horrible that something like this is still happening.”

Mr. Haar from Hamburg said that he had read news about the persecution of Falun Gong in the German media; for the first time he witnessed the activities held by Falun Gong practitioners to expose the persecution. “I consider activities of this kind very good. We should enable more people to understand the persecution", he said.

Michel and his girlfriend, from Spain, attentively viewed the photos of Falun Gong practitioners subjected to brutal torture. For instance, on the photos were practitioners being burned by China’s police with an iron, or with cigarettes, or practitioners who were in pain because heated skewers were inserted into their nails. Standing in front of the exhibition of photos, Michel told the reporter, “Half a century ago, during World War II, German Nazis employed brutal methods to ill treat the Jews. Nowadays such ill treatment still exists in the world. It’s really too brutal.”